Charging stations a weak link in Maharashtra’s EV policy – EQ Mag Pro

In Mumbai alone, at least 24,215 EVs have been purchased after the policy was enacted, as against just 7,400 EVs purchased in 2019-2020 and 9,461 EVs in 2020-2021

Mumbai In its recent budget, the Maharashtra government gave a major boost to electric mobility with the proposal to set up 5,000 new EV charging stations in the next three years. This is to support the growing number of EV purchases in Maharashtra, which have climbed after the state’s EV Policy was rolled out last year.

In Mumbai alone, at least 24,215 EVs have been purchased after the policy was enacted, as against just 7,400 EVs purchased in 2019-2020 and 9,461 EVs in 2020-2021.

At a city level, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) annual budget allocated ₹415.7 crore (in its revised budget estimate for FY 2021-22) and ₹1460.3 crore (its budget estimate for FY 2022-23) towards the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), for the general public as well as its departmental vehicle fleet.

Though municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal did not reveal how many, he announced that the BMC would make the shift to using small capacity e-vehicles (with payloads of about 600kg each) for the collection of waste. The above budget will also be used to set up 100 EV charging stations in Mumbai over the next year, which experts maintain is crucial to the success of Maharashtra’s EV Policy 2021 notified last year.

“To encourage consumers to make the decision to buy an electric vehicle, a lot of other small parts need to be in place. The widespread availability of charging stations, or battery swapping stations, is key. If the nearest public charging station is a 15-minute drive from my home, but the nearest petrol pump is five minutes away, it will influence my decision,” said Promit Mukherjee, associate fellow, Observer Research Foundation, who specialises in sustainable mobility.

Mukherjee and other experts said that charging infrastructure is the impetus that can drive the overall success or failure of the state’s ambitious EV policy. “If you look at it closely, spending is being made under three broadheads. One, supply-side incentives, for manufacturers or contractors who want to set up EV charging stations on a commercial basis. Two, demand-side incentives, which will attract consumers. The third component is charging stations, and this is crucial because the success of demand and supply incentives will depend heavily on their availability,” Mukherjee said.

Put simply, without enough places to charge electric vehicles, consumers are unlikely to purchase them, which makes it imperative that both the state and the city see this particular component of the EV Policy as being at par with subsidies for manufacturers and buyers. “But as it stands, there is a current lack of EV charging stations across the state, especially in big cities where they are needed most. And the policy also leaves a fair amount of uncertainty around this aspect,” Mukherjee said.

“EV policies in India have typically been quite a demand heavy, and this works only to an extent. At a national level, if you look at the Centre’s FAME scheme, only 10 per cent of the allocated funds have been spent so far, which tells us that consumer confidence is still lacking. One way to increase this is actually just by increasing the availability of charging stations, even though Maharashtra’s policy itself does have some attractive incentives for manufacturers as well,” Mukherjee added.

To be sure, Maharashtra’s policy does acknowledge the need for charging stations. The concern is in the implementation. While demand and supply-side subsidies are being tackled by the state government, the burden of setting up charging infrastructure has been given to ULBs, which may not have the planning experience or technical expertise required to do the job. This can be demonstrated by the fact that other forms of clean mobility, like cycling tracks, are also inadequate in the city.

Moreover, setting up 100 EV charging stations in Mumbai will achieve only one-hundredth of the state government’s goal under the EV Policy, which is to establish 1,500 charging stations in both city and suburbs, which come under the BMC’s jurisdiction, by 2025.

“When you are just starting out with a policy, you want to give it the biggest push you can, so in that sense, a 100 EV station is not strong enough footing, to begin with. Yes, it can be assumed that some EVs can be charged quite easily at home. I myself have owned an electric car for over a decade and have been able to charge it from home, but at a policy level, you cannot work with such assumptions,” said Ashok Datar, transport analyst and chairman of the Mumbai Environmental Social Network.

Moreover, funds to set up charging infrastructure in urban agglomerations will be drawn from the clean air funds allocated to the city as per the recommendation of the XV Finance Commission. However, these funds have been allocated only to six cities – Greater Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad and Vasai-Virar – and will be utilised by the respective ULBs within their geographical limits.

As for state and national highways, the task of setting up charging stations has been given to agencies like the PWD and MSRDC. “And these bodies have not yet come out with any plans,” Mukherjee said.

“The policy also leaves a gap between the phasing of both of these plans. Technically, a state/regional plan for charging infrastructure has to be prepared first and then city-level plans should commence. Leaving that detail out creates confusion and is yet another reason for the lack of coordination between different agencies,” ORF noted in a recent analysis of the state’s EV Policy, available on their website.

Akshima Ghate, senior principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute, which played a supporting role in developing the policy, offered another point of view. “It is a gap that ULBs may lack the technical expertise or planning experience, and it is also a gap that there is no guiding, state-level plan for charging stations, but it is not accurate to say that Maharashtra’s policy does not do enough in this regard.”

For example, Ghate explained, the policy does provide incentives for private players to enter the market as service providers. There will also be a single-window process for installing EV connections that offer EV-specific tariffs. The EV Policy 2021 also recommends that amenity spaces for EV charging stations be earmarked in development plans of various cities and that all cities under the National Clean Air Programme prepare a charging infrastructure plan to identify potential locations that can be harnessed to set up EV charging infrastructure. “There will be a particular focus on setting up these stations in already existing petrol pumps,” said a transport department official.

The EV Policy 2021 also recommends that amenity spaces for EV charging stations be earmarked in development plans of various cities and that all cities under the National Clean Air Programme prepare a charging infrastructure plan to identify potential locations that can be harnessed to set up EV charging infrastructure. “There will be a particular focus on setting up these stations in already existing petrol pumps,” said a transport department official.

The state has proposed to incentivise as many as 15,500 public and semi-public EV charging stations, though these incentives will not be available for stations already availing of benefits under FAME-II scheme. For slow charging stations up to 3.3kW, incentives will cover up to 60% of the cost of the unit — excluding the cost of land — with a maximum incentive of ₹10,000 each.

For moderate and fast charging stations above 3.3kW, incentives will cover up to 50% of the cost, at a maximum of ₹500,000 each. The tariff is applicable for all EV charging stations and battery swapping stations in the state has been fixed at between ₹4 and ₹6.6 per unit, as per a March 2020 order issued by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC).

Source: PTI